Sports Betting News: NFL Team History | NFL Football Betting | College Football Betting | Baseball Betting | Basketball Betting | College Basketball Betting | Hockey Betting | Golf Betting | Tennis Betting | Auto Racing Betting | Horse Racing Betting | Soccer Betting
01/08/2012 - Kapalua, HI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Steve Stricker needed a late rally to keep his comfortable lead on Sunday.
The 44-year-old Wisconsin native birdied the final four holes to keep his five-stroke lead after three rounds of the season-opening Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
Stricker carded a four-under 69 to end 54 holes at 19-under-par 200.
He will go for his 12th PGA Tour title on Monday at Kapalua. Stricker has won five of the last six times he has owned at least a piece of the 54-hole lead on the PGA Tour.
Defending champion Jonathan Byrd and Scotland's Martin Laird both shot six- under 67 Sunday to move into a share of second at minus-14. They were joined there by Webb Simpson, who posted a four-under 69 in round three.
Bryce Molder (67) and Kevin Na (71) are tied for fifth at 11-under-par 208.
Stricker led by five entering the round, but got off to a slow start with six consecutive pars. He posted his first birdie on the seventh as he drained a 20-footer.
However, he gave that stroke right back with a three-putt bogey on the par- three eighth.
Stricker was still three clear at that point, but as he parred the next six holes Simpson inched within one of the lead.
Much like he did in the first two rounds, Stricker caught fire down the stretch. He two-putted for birdie on the par-five 15th. Stricker spun his short approach off the front edge on 16.
No worries, though. He chipped in for birdie to push his lead back to three strokes.
Stricker stuffed his approach within four feet at 17 and poured that birdie putt in. At the 18th, he came up just short with his second, but rolled an eagle effort within two feet. Stricker kicked that in for birdie to finish his second straight round with a five-stroke cushion.
"It was a struggle today. Not a lot of good things happened," admitted Stricker in a televised interview. "I stayed patient, I really did. I kind of stole one with the chip in on 16.
"When you're leading a golf tournament, it is so hard to keep the momentum. I had such a good day [Saturday], and when you're not making birdies, you feel like you're letting things slip away. And that's what I was feeling like. Fortunately, I had a good finish."
Stricker has played the 15th through 18th at 11-under with nine birdies, an eagle and two pars.
Byrd stumbled to bogeys on the second and third to tumble nine strokes back at the time. He got those strokes right back with a birdie on the fourth and an eagle on No. 5.
After three straight pars, Byrd birdied five of seven holes from the ninth to soar to 14-under. He parred the last three to share second.
"I had a rough start. I made two poor bogeys starting out. I hit a good wedge on four near that accessible pin, then eagled five," Byrd explained on television. "I hadn't played the par-fives real well, so making that eagle got me back in it feeling like I was playing good again."
Laird had four birdies on the front nine before faltering to his only bogey on No. 11. He erased that mistake with a birdie at 12. Back-to-back birdies from the 15th moved Laird to minus-14. He parred the last two.
"It was tough to make some putts out here. The greens are grainy with lots of slopes, so it takes a few holes to get used to the reads," Laird said in a TV interview. "That was kind of the case today."
Simpson had one birdie through seven holes. He carded three birdies in a five- hole span from the eighth to get to 14-under. Simpson was just one back, but the 16th proved to be a tough turning point.
Like Stricker, Simpson spun his approach off the green. Simpson failed to get it up and down, and his bogey dropped him four back. He did two-putt for birdie at the last to get back to minus-14.
It may have only been a four-under 69 for Simpson, but it was pretty impressive as he put a new driver in his bag moments before the round started. Simpson cracked the face of his old driver on the practice range, but was able to get a new one before his round began.
Harrison Frazar had the low round of the day with his seven-under 66. He jumped three spots into seventh place at 10-under-par 209.
NOTES: Stricker is 7-of-13 in his PGA Tour career with at least a piece of the 54-hole lead...Americans own 18 of the top 21 spots on the leaderboard...The event has a scheduled Monday finish with the tee times pushed up two hours so that the round ends prior to the start of college football's national championship game.
<< Suns beat Bucks at home, again
Phoenix, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Marcin Gortat led seven Suns in double figures
with 18 points, as Phoenix crushed the Bucks, 109-93, at US Airways Center.
The outcome was not surprising, considering Milwaukee has not won in Phoenix
since F
<< Ducks top Blue Jackets behind Perry's hat trick
Anaheim, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Corey Perry recorded his fourth career hat
trick, leading the Ducks to a 7-4 victory over the Blue Jackets.
Teemu Selanne added two tallies for Anaheim, which has won two in a row for
the first time s
<< Durant leads Thunder over Spurs
Oklahoma City, OK (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kevin Durant finished with 21 points, 10
rebounds and seven assists, leading the Thunder in a 108-96 victory over the
Spurs on Sunday.
James Harden netted 20 points off the bench, while fellow r
<< Broncos' Tebow, Thomas stun Steelers in OT
Denver, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - And on the second day of the NFL playoffs, the
Denver Broncos rose again.
Tim Tebow and Demaryius Thomas connected for an 80-yard touchdown on the first
play of overtime, giving the Broncos a 29-23 victory over
Bryant, Lakers handle Grizzlies >>
Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kobe Bryant scored 26 points and dished out
nine assists as the Los Angeles Lakers downed the Memphis Grizzlies, 90-82.
Despite turning over the ball 27 times, the Lakers took advantage of the Zach
Randolp
McDaniels rejoins Patriots' staff >>
Foxboro, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The New England Patriots added former Denver
Broncos head coach Josh McDaniels as an offensive assistant for the remainder
of the 2011 season.
McDaniels was the offensive coordinator for the Rams this p
Northern Illinois prevails in GoDaddy.com Bowl >>
Mobile, AL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chandler Harnish threw two touchdown passes and
Northern Illinois shook off a slow start to take down Arkansas State, 38-20,
in the GoDaddy.com Bowl.
Harnish limped off the field early in the second quarte
Wickmayer eases into second round in Hobart >>
Hobart, Australia (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Top-seeded Yanina Wickmayer earned a 7-5,
6-4 win over Marina Erakovic in first-round action at the $220,000 Moorilla
Hobart International on Monday.
Fourth-seeded Angelique Kerber downed Elena Vesnina, 6
MySportsbook.com is considered one of the finest online sportsbook according to several surveys performed by independent industry analysts considering such factors as payout accuracy and timeliness, overall quality of website, and bettor satisfaction.
MySportsbook is offering a free printable NFL football office pool sheets. Run your own NFL Football Office Pool. Create your own pool, invite your friends to join. Compete with your with co-workers, friends or family for bragging rights every week. Exchange some hard hits without risk of injury. Trash Talk with your fellow co-workers.
To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your nfl football pool sheets needs.
Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.
“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.
“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).
Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.
Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.
The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.
Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game
Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.
Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.
Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”
To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds.
Sports Betting News: NFL Team History | NFL Football Betting | College Football Betting | Baseball Betting | Basketball Betting | College Basketball Betting | Hockey Betting | Golf Betting | Tennis Betting | Auto Racing Betting | Horse Racing Betting | Soccer Betting